


The Evil Men Do

by otherhawk



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, But That's Not the Point, Gen, Light Angst, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherhawk/pseuds/otherhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets a morality question from an unexpected source. Oh, and three of the team are turned into children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Evil Men Do

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously posted to fanfiction.net, so apologies to anyone who has read it before

It had been a long and above all weird day. Steve would say it wasn't every day that your team-mates got turned into their child selves by a legendary Asgardian sorcerer...sorceress?...but since waking up from the ice, he'd learned not to say anything to jinx himself.

Anyway, they'd been battling the Enchantress in Central Park – and winning – and just as they were about to finally capture her she'd thrown one last humdinger of a spell at them, and when all the smoke and flashing lights had cleared away she'd been gone and he'd been staring at mini versions of three of his team-mates.

Later, Thor had suggested that the spell had probably been designed to work on humans, which was why only Natasha, Clint and Tony had been affected. Neither he nor Bruce had really known how to react to that. Maybe the serum had altered him...what made someone human anyway? Now there was a question that was going to come back to him at three in the morning.

But that was where the real fun started. Between Hulk deciding that little Tony was even more in need of his protection than normal, Clint deciding that the only possible way to deal with the shock and confusion of all this was to stab Thor repeatedly in the leg with one of the very sharp arrows he'd found himself holding, and Natasha taking one look at the stars and stripes on Steve's uniform and promptly doing her level best to kill him with her bare hands, it had taken them hours to at least get the kids corralled and back to SHIELD medical, and that only happened at all because Steve had finally thought to get JARVIS on the phone to translate for Natasha.

He frowned, remembering the look on Sitwell's face when Steve had taken five seconds to assure JARVIS that Tony was alive. Apparently the armour had shorted when the spell hit, and JARVIS had no idea what had happened, and still Sitwell condescendingly told him that the frantic edge he could hear in the AI's voice was all in his imagination. Just a computer, after all.

SHIELD medical hadn't been much help either, beyond determining that all this was simply fascinating, and that Natasha, Clint and Tony had somehow been reverted back to exactly how they were when they were seven. Exactly. Right down to every last cut, scrape, bruise and burn.

It was no wonder that Bruce had stayed Hulked out. Steve certainly had the urge to punch people right about now, and it didn't exactly help that everyone responsible was well beyond his reach. And Thor just looked sick all the time, like he didn't understand and yet, oddly, he'd maybe adapted the best out of all of them, bringing the kids poptarts and, when all three just looked at the plate suspiciously, calmly sitting cross legged on the floor and eating one himself, just to prove that it was safe. Then he sang them a song which was, as far as Steve could tell, maybe not entirely child-friendly, but they were sitting and listening and even if they weren't smiling they were at least not actually panicking, trying to escape or trying to commit murder, and that was good enough for him.

So that, of course, was the moment that Maria Hill chose to walk in and brightly promise them all, in what was very probably meant to be a reassuring tone, that they would find a way to send all the kids home soon enough.

In the midst of all the pandemonium that followed, Steve put his foot down. They would be taking their child team mates home, and home was the Avengers tower. As by that time Clint had vanished into the ventilation system with a wide selection of sharp and throwable objects, Natasha had set fire to the infirmary and broken a nurse's arm, and Tony had built himself a working taser and was clearly only too happy to use it on anyone who even thought about coming near him; SHIELD seemed happy to wash their hands of the whole sorry mess and concentrate on finding a way to reverse the process.

Which left Steve, Bruce and Thor in the role of babysitters. Personally, Steve was counting this first day as a win, mostly because the tower was still standing and everyone was still alive.

Not that it had been easy. None of the kids trusted them an inch, all watchful and wary, and flinching from every sudden movement or raised hand, and it broke Steve's heart. It was one thing to read a file and know that your friends hadn't had an easy life; it was something else to see it first hand.

Clint was the most jumpy, keeping well out of arms reach and never letting anyone get between him and the nearest exit. He barely said a word, acting like if he just kept his head low they might forget he existed, and when Thor forgot himself and called for Bruce in his normal bellow, Clint reacted like a wounded animal, running and hiding on the top of the highest kitchen cupboard, and it took Steve two hours of patient talking to get him to come down.

Natasha...Natasha was almost entirely emotionless. Having seemingly accepted the situation, she followed every suggestion relayed through JARVIS like it was an order, displaying a mechanical single-mindedness that made Steve feel sick. It was difficult to remember she was a child. He'd say she was like a tiny robot, but the truth was, Tony's robots showed far more emotion. Bruce suggested they watch some cartoons, and she sat and stared at the screen like she was afraid she'd be punished if she looked away, and when Thor asked what she was watching, she recounted the plot in a monotone and just stared blankly when he tried asking if she was enjoying it.

Tony was the best off physically of the three by far, though there were a couple of bruises that made Steve wish Howard was alive so he could punch him, and then ask him why, and then punch him again. But if Clint hoped that they'd forget he existed, Tony seemed to expect it, waiting until they were occupied taking care of one of the others before quietly sneaking off and finding some out of the way spot to hide, and he didn't seem to understand why they always bothered to come find him. At least he seemed to trust JARVIS – he'd started off fascinated, and the AI had been patient and warm and now Tony checked everything they said with JARVIS, checking for the lie, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It all made him hurt and angry and heartsick.

Now, finally, they'd got the children to sleep, or at least lie in bed and pretend to be sleeping, and Steve wandered down into the kitchen, looking for something to eat, and immediately froze. Every single appliance was lying in pieces, like it had been blown apart.

"What..." He reached for his shield, his mind racing. With half the team down, they were vulnerable to intruders, and more to the point, they were vulnerable. "JARVIS?" he hissed, needing to know what was happening, why they hadn't been alerted.

"I am sorry, Captain Rogers," JARVIS' voice echoed from the walls, sounding strangely subdued.

"What happened here?" he demanded, not lowering his shield.

"I am sorry," JARVIS said again. "I...I was angry."

Oh. Carefully, he laid the shield down on the counter, gently shoving the remains of the coffee machine out of the way, before reaching into the fridge and pouring himself a tall glass of milk. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked up at the nearest camera. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

Maybe it was because Steve had been raised without any concept of computers, but he'd never really been able to get his head around the idea of JARVIS being just an unthinking, unfeeling machine. As far as he was concerned, JARVIS talked like a person, so that's the way Steve treated him.

"I'm sorry," JARVIS said for a third time, and Steve frowned. "I am well aware that this is anomalous behaviour. I shall scan myself for errors overnight."

"Don't," Steve said abruptly, and then sighed. "I mean, do if you want, but I don't know if I'd say it's...anomalous behaviour, or anything. I mean, Tony made a whole room full of things for Hulk to smash, and you know how many punching bags I get through. Sometimes, when you've got a lot to be angry about, breaking something...it just makes you feel better, even for a moment." He supposed, judging from the science fiction shows Clint made them all watch, he shouldn't be encouraging the super computer to express its anger, but he shoved the thought out of his head. Kinda sounded like prejudice to him. "And right now, I think we've all got a lot to be angry about."

"I was talking to Sir," JARVIS said, his voice level and emotionless.

Steve nodded and sipped at his milk. He didn't press any further; JARVIS wouldn't betray Tony's confidences unless he was in danger, and if Tony was in danger JARVIS would have already said something. No, this was simply something that Tony had said which had been enough to make JARVIS angry. Something about his childhood...Steve wasn't even sure he wanted to know. But he noticed the way JARVIS said 'Sir'. Normally when he was talking about Tony, the AI would call him 'Mr Stark'. Steve had only heard him call Tony 'Sir' in that...fond?...tone of voice in private, overhead conversations.

"Captain Rogers?" JARVIS said, almost hesitantly.

"Yes?" he said, looking back at the camera with a warm smile.

"May I ask you something?" JARVIS asked.

He frowned; that in itself was an unexpected question. He'd never really talked with the AI before. "Of course," he said anyway.

There was a short pause before JARVIS spoke. "Why do people mistreat each other?"

Oh, God. He wasn't qualified to have this conversation. He wasn't sure if anyone was qualified to have this conversation. "Well," he began, trying to buy time. "Sometimes when someone has something someone else wants - "

" - that is not what I mean," JARVIS said, and Steve blinked. He'd never heard JARVIS interrupt anyone before. "Why do people mistreat each other when there is no obvious reason? When there is nothing to gain?"

When they were talking about children who should be protected. "Are you sure you want to talk to me about this?" he tried. "I mean, wouldn't you rather wait and talk to Tony about it? When he's himself again." He realised he'd just assumed that they were going to get the adult Tony back, but thankfully JARVIS didn't call him on it.

"I have discussed this with Sir in the past," JARVIS told him, and Steve raised his eyebrows. Honestly, he was surprised by that. He couldn't imagine Tony and JARVIS sitting down and talking philosophy and morality."He told me it was because people are bastards. I wanted a different perspective on it. You are considered to be one of the most moral men and I wondered what you thought."

He laughed slightly. "Sorry. You know, I remember having this sort of conversation back when I was a kid. We had Sunday school lessons every now and then, and I remember asking the teacher, why God allowed suffering."

"What did your teacher reply?" JARVIS asked.

"She said it was our choices," he said with a shrug. "That God gave us free will, and some men choose to do evil."

"I do not have a God to believe in," JARVIS pointed out. "I know who gave me life."

"I suppose you do," he said slowly. It was an uncomfortable sort of thought.

"I do not understand why some men choose to do evil," JARVIS said after a second. "I do not understand why some people choose to hurt their children."

He sighed, burying his face in his hands. "Neither do I," he admitted, his voice choked. Howard had been a good man, once upon a time. A good friend. How did someone like that not see what they were doing was wrong? "I'm sorry, JARVIS. I don't have an answer for you." He thought about the cigarette burns on Clint's arm, the whip marks on Natasha's back, the bruises on Tony's face. The terror in all of them, the belief that nobody cared...that fact that as far as Steve could tell, the first time around, nobody had cared. "I don't understand it anymore than you do. I think all we can do, you and I, is to try and stop evil men, and protect those who need it. For all the times we weren't able to protect those we love and care about."

There was a long silence. "You should go to bed, Captain Rogers," JARVIS said finally. "I think tomorrow will be another long day."

Yes. He imagined it would. He smiled. "Okay. Goodnight, JARVIS."

"Goodnight, Captain Rogers," JARVIS said. "I will wake you if any of the children need you."

"Of course," he agreed. He paused in the doorway. "You know. If Tony really thought that all people were...bastards...he wouldn't be Iron Man."

There was silence. It wasn't until he was walking up the stairs that he heard JARVIS quietly say "Thank you, Captain Rogers."

He smiled again. "You're welcome."


End file.
